Epilepsy patients may experience brief brain dysfunction during the onset of the disease, and the disease is very prone to recurrence. It is a common neurological disorder because the highly synchronized abnormal discharge of brain neurons causes abnormalities in the brain in a short period of time. Epilepsy is more likely to occur in children under one year old, and its incidence rate increases inversely with age. Speaking of epilepsy, it is actually very common in daily life and may be around us, but we don't pay attention to it. Let's learn about epilepsy together.
1、 What is epilepsy? What is epilepsy? When it comes to epilepsy, people generally associate it with epilepsy, epilepsy wind, etc., which are common names for epilepsy. Epilepsy is a kind of transient dysfunctional disease clinically. The clinical incidence rate of epilepsy in China is high, and it can occur at any age, mainly in adolescents. Before an epileptic seizure, there are usually no obvious signs. The onset is sudden and progresses rapidly. During the seizure, the patient will suddenly shout loudly, then lose consciousness, start rolling up their eyes, twitching their limbs, and spitting saliva, which can last for a few seconds or minutes. Seizures can be very frightening because people generally lack understanding of epilepsy and medical knowledge, and often feel helpless when encountering epilepsy patients. Epilepsy can occur suddenly and inexplicably, with both recurrent and transient characteristics. It should be noted that epilepsy is a chronic brain disease caused by abnormal discharge of brain neurons, but people who experience epileptic seizures do not necessarily have epilepsy.
2、 What are the symptoms of epilepsy?
Epilepsy, as a common neurological disorder, must be detected and treated early. How to achieve early detection? Firstly, it is necessary to understand the symptoms of epilepsy in order to determine whether it is epilepsy. So, what are the symptoms of epilepsy? Let's take a look below.
1. Symptoms of epilepsy during seizures: There are many symptoms of epilepsy, such as generalized clonic epilepsy, which is more common. During seizures, patients mainly experience rhythmic contractions of muscles throughout the body, usually the facial muscles contract first. Due to the twitching of the chewing muscles, there is a risk of biting the tongue and lips. The subtle tremors in the limbs gradually increase and spread throughout the body, and intermittent flexion spasms occur.
2. Symptoms of consciousness during epileptic seizures: Patients may lose consciousness, fall to the ground, contract muscles throughout the body, tilt the head backwards, experience upper limb flexion stiffness, and lower limb extension stiffness. During a seizure, the mouth of a patient with epilepsy rhythmically opens and closes, and the facial muscles twitch. This symptom can cause the patient to bite their tongue, so family members should pay special attention to taking care of themselves when the disease occurs.
3. The common symptoms of epilepsy include an increasing frequency of onset, with each episode lasting for varying lengths of time, sometimes lasting about 1-3 minutes, and finally stopping abruptly after a strong spasm.
During the onset of epilepsy, patients may also experience other accompanying symptoms. For example, the heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, sweat secretion and saliva increase significantly, because during the attack, coarse breathing will cause saliva to flow out of the mouth in foam. Pupil dilation, loss of bowel movements, etc.
3、 What to do after a seizure?
There are many types of epilepsy, and for patients whose symptoms are not particularly severe after a seizure, they can choose to seek medical attention at an elective time. If the duration of epileptic seizure exceeds 5 minutes, and the patient still does not recover consciousness and breath after the seizure stops, the seizure will occur again soon after the seizure, and patients with fever or febrile convulsion, diabetes, or epilepsy are injured due to falling, they need to go to the emergency department of the hospital quickly for treatment.
4、 Does epilepsy require treatment? How to treat it?
Whether epilepsy needs treatment and how to treat it depends on the number of epileptic seizures, recurrence, etiology, type, etc., and requires comprehensive judgment. The ideal state for epilepsy treatment is complete control of epileptic seizures, and medication regimens are generally preferred. If there is a clear cause, such as epilepsy caused by a brain tumor, the brain tumor should be removed if the patient's physical condition allows to eliminate the cause of epilepsy. During an acute seizure of epilepsy, people around the patient need to help them loosen their collar and waist belt to maintain smooth breathing. Then use clothing to cushion the important parts of the joints to prevent abrasions. Remove patients from hazardous areas to avoid injury. Will not exert strong pressure on the patient's body to avoid fractures and dislocations. The drugs used to treat epilepsy can be divided into traditional antiepileptic drugs and new antiepileptic drugs. Traditional antiepileptic drugs include carbamazepine, valproic acid, phenobarbital, clonazepam, etc. The new antiepileptic drugs mainly include levetiracetam, oxcarbazepine, lamotrigine, etc. The medication used for different types of epileptic seizures such as generalized tonic clonic seizures, tonic seizures, and clonic seizures varies depending on the patient's actual condition.
Epilepsy is a very common disease with typical symptoms that are easy to distinguish. It is necessary to prevent and treat the disease to ensure the health of patients, actively treat the primary disease, effectively control epileptic seizures, achieve ideal treatment results, and improve the quality of life.